Graduate Students Receive Grants in Couple and Family Dynamics

Two graduate students were awarded APF Randy Gerson Memorial Grants for their work in couple and family dynamics and multi-generational processes.

Robin Barry

Robin Barry of the University of Iowa and Jennifer Willett of the University of Tennessee were each awarded $6,000 Gerson grants. Barry’s research involves marital distress and decline, examining the effect that romantic disengagement has on marriage. Romantic disengagement involves spouses’ perception that they are generally more emotionally and behaviorally distant from their partners compared to other couples. Barry hopes that her work can be used to improve upon existing programs aimed at preventing marital distress, or can lead to the development of such programs.

Jennifer Willett

Willett’s research explored how offspring perceive their parents’ relationships, and how that perception plays a role in their own relationships. Specifically, she will examine the effects parental marital strife has on offspring’s own romantic relationship functioning, taking social cognitions of the offspring into account. She will gather perspectives from both offspring and parents on family-of-origin relationships in an effort to examine how closely parent and offspring perspectives mirror or differ from each other. Willett hopes to identify potential sources of resilience and adaptation that offspring may possess.